Running Hot (28 page)

“That’s when she shot you?”

“No. While she was screaming at me and I was concentrating on manipulating her aura, her lover walked out of the hallway behind me and shot me.”

“There was a
lover
involved?”

“It was a complicated situation.”

“How did you get your one-second warning?”

“I was facing away from the hall. But the client was looking straight at it while she yelled at me. When she saw her lover with the gun, I saw her aura spike. I knew something had changed in the situation. Cop instinct took over from there. Caught the bullet in my thigh. Before the lover could line up another shot, I put him to sleep.”

Grace shuddered. “Close call. What happened to your client and her lover?”

“They’re both sitting in prison at the moment. Probably be out on an early-release program. The family has a lot of money and more than one talented lawyer on the tree.”

She nodded and ate the papaya very slowly, trying to make the moment last as long as possible. It was all so perfect, she thought. The sun-warmed room, the light, floral breeze off the lanai; Luther sitting there with her. Life didn’t get any better than this. But such moments could not last forever. She knew that better than most. After a while she put down her spoon.

“We need to talk,” she said.

“Oh, shit.”

She frowned. “What now?”

“I hate conversations that start with ‘We need to talk.’ ”

“Sorry.” She sat a little straighter in the chair. “But this is important.”

“Uh-huh.” He picked up a slice of toast. “Okay, let’s have it.”

“Fallon Jones keeps saying that this situation, at least as far as you and I are concerned, is under control. But last night you were almost killed. Because of me.”

He put the uneaten portion of toast on his plate. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Last night is over. If the situation wasn’t under control before, it is now.”

“I don’t think so. Last night was a wake-up call for me. I don’t care what Mr. Jones says, I saw the Siren’s aura. My intuition tells me that she is obsessing over what happened on Maui. She’s powerful and she’s lethal and I don’t want you or Petra and Wayne to get killed trying to protect me.”

“Protecting people is what I do, remember? I’m a bodyguard.”

“You proved that last night. I don’t want you to take any more chances on my behalf.”

“Let me worry about the chances I take.”

“What about Petra and Wayne? They have nothing to do with this but she might target them to get to me. I don’t want to be responsible for putting any of you in more danger.”

“Planning to disappear again?”

She stiffened. “It worked well the last time.”

“You’ve built a new life for yourself. You can’t be serious about leaving it behind to fire up another one.”

“I’ve always been able to handle my own problems. I’ll deal with this.”

“Not alone. Not this time. J&J got you into this mess. J&J has a responsibility to protect you. And since I’m the nearest J&J bodyguard on the scene, you’ve got me, whether you like it or not.”

“Petra and Wayne don’t work for J&J,” she said, desperate now.

“Remember what you said about the Society being the closest thing you’ve got to a family?”

“What about it?”

“Petra and Wayne are my family. As long as you and I are together, they see you as family, too. You couldn’t make them walk away from this if you tried.” He grinned. “Besides, they’d be crushed if you refused their help.”

“I’d rather have them crushed than dead because of me.”

“Trust me, Petra and Wayne don’t see it that way. They may be getting on in years, but they’re warriors, Grace—warriors to the bone.”

She tried and failed to blink back the tears. “I was afraid of this.”

“What, exactly, were you afraid of?”

She wiped one cheek with the back of her hand. “I was afraid that I wouldn’t have the courage to turn down your offer.”

“It’s not an offer,” he said softly. “It’s just the way things are. I couldn’t let you walk away now, even if you tried.”

“Luther—”

“Hush.”

She felt herself grow unnaturally calm and serene.

“Stop that.” She glowered. “I’ll let you know if I want my aura manipulated.”

The artificial serenity vanished.

He grinned. “I love it when you do that. Gets me hot.”

She glowered harder. “How can you talk about sex at a time like this?”

“You’re right. When it comes to sex, talking isn’t nearly as much fun as doing.”

He got to his feet, made his way around the table and hauled her up out of the chair. His mouth closed over hers before she could think of a good reason to stop him.

She tried to resist for all of two seconds. Then, with a sigh, she put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him back.

She sensed the passion unfurling between them. He kissed her until she shimmered with need, until she trembled with it; until she could no longer even think about getting on a plane, let alone starting a new life.

He captured her face between his hands.

“I won’t let you disappear on me,” he said. “If you try to leave, I will come after you. Never forget that. And I will find you.”

She went very still, her fingers clenched around his shoulders. She could not identify the tangle of emotions cascading through her. Fear? Hope? Love?

“What makes you so certain that you could find me?” she asked.

It wasn’t a challenge. It was a question, an urgent one. She needed an answer badly.

“Because you and I are linked,” he said. “Don’t try to tell me that you don’t sense the bond between us.”

He covered her mouth with his own again, not waiting for an answer. Her hands tightened on him. With a small, urgent little cry, she kissed him back, holding him captive, just as he held her.

Somehow they ended up on the ancient sofa. He eased her onto her back. In the short time they had been together, he had learned a lot about what made her hot in bed and he applied the knowledge ruthlessly. The energy of passion—light and dark—flared high.

But the bond worked both ways. She knew him now as well as he knew her and she was just as ruthless.

He drove himself deep inside her. Her senses flared, fusing with his in the moment of release. And then they both fell off the edge of the world.

THIRTY-SIX

The monster did not come from under the bed, he came down the unlit hall. She heard him unlock the door that she had locked so carefully. Frozen with panic, she watched his terrifying aura as he moved stealthily into her room.

She had just turned fourteen. She had been in the foster care system for only a few months but her survival instincts were already razor sharp. She had gone to bed fully clothed every night because she sensed that sooner or later the husband would come to her room.

In the dense shadows she could not see him but his energy field blazed with the darkness of perverted lust. He came to stand beside the bed.

“Are you awake, sweetie?” he crooned. “I came to kiss you good night.”

She did not answer. She did not move. She did not think she could move. Perhaps if she pretended to be asleep, the monster would go away.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and put one hand on her leg. She trembled, instinctively shrinking from him.

“So you are awake,” he whispered. “I thought so. You’re a sexy young lady. All grown up. I’ll bet you’ve had a couple of boyfriends already, haven’t you?” He drew his hand up her thigh. “But you probably haven’t had a real man yet.”

“Please, don’t.” Her throat was so tight she could hardly get the words out.

“I’m going to teach you how to please a man. By the time you’ve had some lessons from me, you’ll be able to get any guy you want.”

“No.”

“Don’t worry, with an ass like yours, you’ll be a natural.”

His hand moved up the blanket, over her hip, heading toward her breast. She saw the sick pulsations in his aura. She struggled to a sitting position.

“No,” she said.

It should have come out as a scream but fear partially gagged her.

“Stop it,” he ordered angrily. “Stop it right now. This is how it’s going to be. You’re going to learn that tonight. I’m going to make a woman out of you. Believe me, in the end you’ll be grateful to me.”

She wanted to run but he had her trapped against the headboard. She was shivering violently to the beat of her own pulse. She struggled but he was far too strong. He forced her back down onto the pillows and yanked aside the sheet and blanket.

“Wore your jeans to bed, I see.” He chuckled. “You are a nervous little filly, aren’t you? But we’ll get you past that, don’t you worry.”

He started to unfasten her jeans.

She flattened her hands against his upper chest. Her palms touched his rough, hairy skin. She realized he was wearing the grimy tank-style shirt that he’d had on earlier.

“Go ahead and struggle,” he said. “It’ll make things more fun.”

He tugged at her jeans.

“No,” she repeated. Her voice was still half strangled.

She knew a terrible sense of helplessness. She had no chance against him physically. He was too big and too strong and too aroused. Frantic, she pushed back at him with her hands and with her fully jacked aura.

As though it had been triggered by the threat, her new, rapidly developing talent flared higher than it ever had before. She felt the leap and pulse and flash of the invisible energy. She could not see the fierce veil that surrounded her—she had learned early on that individuals could not view their own auras, not even aura readers—but power could always be sensed. The effects were immediate and devastating to her attacker.

He jerked wildly, as though he had touched a live electrical wire. The scream of rage and fear was trapped in his throat. Seconds later he collapsed on top of her, a dead weight.

Her hands burned.

“Grace.”

Luther’s voice, laced with solid, reassuring command, brought her out of the dream. She awoke with a start, shivering. He pulled her against him, comforting her with his body and a gentling hand.

“Sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay.” He stroked the length of her spine. “I was tempted to calm your aura but the last time I tried that you didn’t appreciate it.”

“No.” She hesitated. “I’d rather deal with the nightmares than feel that someone else is controlling me.”

“Understood.”

She huddled close. After a while she stopped trembling. Her breathing returned to normal. She exhaled slowly, sat up on the side of the bed and wrapped her arms around herself.

“In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m pretty screwed up, Luther. Are you sure you want to get involved with me?”

“In case you haven’t figured it out, we’re already involved.” He grabbed his cane and made his way around the foot of the bed to sit beside her. Close but not quite touching. “And you aren’t the only one in this relationship who is a little screwed up. So what? How bad was the dream?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Yes,” he said, “I do.”

He had a right to know, she thought.

“I told you that I was responsible for Martin Crocker’s death,” she said quietly. “But he wasn’t the first.”

Luther said nothing. He just waited.

“There was another man. When I was fourteen.”

“While you were in the foster care system?”

“Yes.” She unfolded her arms and looked at her hands. “He came to my room one night. Said he was going to make a woman out of me. His aura terrified me. I fought back instinctively with talent but I had only recently come into it. I didn’t know what I could do, what I was capable of. I didn’t have any control.”

“You fought back and he died.”

“He was leaning over me, touching me. I put my hands on his chest and
shoved.
”

“With your hands and the full energy of your aura.”

“It was all instinct and panic on my part. I think he tried to scream but no sound came out. He just collapsed and died.” She closed her hands into small fists. “It was as if I’d touched a red-hot stove. But there were no marks on my palms. The pain faded rapidly. The worst was over within forty-eight hours. But four days later I was in a fast-food restaurant getting a slice of pizza. The clerk accidentally dropped the plastic plate. We both reached for it. Our hands collided. The burning sensation came back. Not nearly as strong but it
hurt.
I was terrified. I thought I’d been somehow marked for life.”